Same-sex marriage could bring additional stability Michigan families

By Robert S. Ball

Monday, March 3, 2014

It’s Michigan’s turn to subject a ban on same-sex marriage to a federal court. U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman is conducting a trial in Detroit on the question. He’s expected to rule on the matter in a few days.

It’s pointless for anyone not a party to the lawsuit to attempt to tell a federal judge how he should rule.

But it’s OK to wish: That the judge will strike down the amendment, and that his ruling will survive any appeals.

And it’s reasonable to believe that Judge Friedman will do that: It was his idea to bring the lawsuit in its present form.

A Hazel Park couple, Jayne Rowse and April DeBoer, wished to adopt each other’s children, and sued to overturn a state law preventing same-sex couples from doing so. Judge Friedman refused to grant the request, but suggested instead that they challenge the gay marriage ban, approved by 59 percent of Michigan voters in 2004.

The will of the people as expressed a decade ago doesn’t mean they were right then or that their expression more than nine years ago should continue today.

As same-sex unions take hold in state after state, it becomes clearer that to prevent them is truly discriminatory and that it discriminates against a group of residents for no valid reason.

Because it violates religious beliefs? That’s certainly the case in the eyes of many believers, but there’s no unanimity in any faith against same-sex unions.

Because children need both a male and a female parent? That argument is losing steam. We see the results of bad parenting all around us at the hands of a father and a mother. Doesn’t that make it clear that the quality of parenting is more important than the gender of the parents?

Michigan voters approved the ban in a banner year for opponents of same-sex unions, one of 11 states to outlaw such unions.

But polls and elections show a dramatic shift in attitudes toward acceptance of gay and lesbian marriage. It’s true in Michigan, where a poll showed nearly 57 percent support same-sex marriage, up 12.5 percent since 2012.

The elections in that banner year of 2004 followed approval of same sex marriage in Massachusetts. But 17 states and the District of Columbia now permit them and, as in Michigan, moves are pending in other states to permit them.

OK, if the tide against gay marriage is turning in Michigan, why not ask the state’s voters for a re-do? That’s what Michigan’s attorney general is proposing.

It’s hard to argue his point, except to point out that he proposed it a little late. If Judge Friedman rules against the 2004 amendment, Schuette’s point is moot.

There’s another reason to see such unions in a rosier light.

Marriage in any state, anyplace at all, is risky business. Although the often-quoted statistic that half of marriages end in divorce is questionable, it’s clear enough that too many do end.

Despite some beliefs to the contrary, there’s no indication that gay and lesbian unions are inherently less stable than male-female unions.

So it’s in the interest of all of us, our state and our nation, to build and nurture a large, solid foundation of committed couples, of successful marriages and unions, regardless of the sex of the couples.

Rowse and DeBoer, the couple whose case is before Judge Friedman, have been a couple for 12 years, lived together for six and jointly own their home in Hazel Park. DeBoer adopted her daughter in 2010. Rowse adopted two sons the year before.

The bottom line for these women is that each wants to parent all three children.

That kind of commitment should be honored in law and made available to any gay or lesbian couple willing to add to the nation’s bedrock of stable, committed marriage.

Robert Ball is a former reporter, editor and editorial writer for the Journal Register Company/Digital First Media.